


It's a Good Plan

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Background Relationships, Background Slash, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 10:24:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18849142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: Rude's used to cleaning up Reno's messes. Honestly, he's got it down to an art. Especially when it comes to the messes his partner makes in a certain bar owned and operated by a certain former terrorist that Rude still has a big ol' crush on.





	It's a Good Plan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eratoschild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eratoschild/gifts).



> I really hope you don't mind the little bit of Rude/Tifa I threw in here! They're one of my favorite pairings in this fandom, but I promise I kept it to a minimum. This is much more about the dynamic of Reno and Rude as friends and partners than any romantic pairings.

Typically the population had one of three mindsets when it came to the Turks. Those who knew of them only by reputation were generally terrified. They were the SHINRA equivalent of government spooks. When they showed up in their neatly pressed suits something—or someone, sometimes several someones—disappeared. Those who had actually dealt with the Turks instead of subsisting on rumors tended to be angry. If they showed up they were guaranteed to take over jurisdiction of whatever was going on. Whether they took over via bureaucratic red tape or violence seemed to depend on the day and which of them was leading the operation, but it was always annoying and usually resulted in a mess that someone would be doing paperwork about for weeks.

A rare few people, however, thought they were complete morons. Not morons in the way that some folks were truly, tragically stupid. No, people who carried that opinion of the Turks thought they were morons in the sense that they could make even the most intense, violent situations into something that might as well have been a scene in a slapstick comedy. These select few, of course, were pretty much made up of anyone who’d had more than just a passing interaction with Reno. A handful might have caught sight of Elena drunk in her early days, but mostly it was Reno.

It was a fair assessment.

“Rude, if you don’t get him out of this bar in the next forty-five seconds I will go back to trying to kill you both.” On any given day, Tifa Lockhart had the patience of a saint. Any given day did not apply to days that Reno challenged locals to a drinking contest.

One of the heavy wooden tables that normally dotted the 7th Heaven bar was nothing but splinters in the middle of the floor. A chair lay on its back off to one side. One of its legs had been launched behind the bar. There were two split lips in a couple of her favorite patrons, a gash in Reno’s forehead that would probably need stitches, a few shot glasses that were nothing more than shards, and a board game that was never going to be whole again. In the middle of the ruins of the table Reno was still swaying along to the jukebox, singing in an off-key falsetto, half his clothes missing. To be completely fair, it _had_ started out innocently enough. It usually did. It just never seemed to stay that way.

Rude was quiet for a few moments, rubbing one hand over his mouth as he looked over the scene. After a fashion he leaned one elbow against the bar, tilting his head in the owner’s direction. “You could save us both some future trouble and just take him out,” he murmured, his tone wry.

“If only.” Tifa huffed out a soft laugh. “Just get him out of here.”

“I’ll replace the table tomorrow.”

He left before she could tell him he didn’t have to—she always did, and he never listened anyway. It was a routine as regular as clockwork: Reno wrecked something, Rude took him home, and the next day he fixed whatever the redhead had broken. Reno was practically a wet ragdoll. Rude scooped his partner’s clothes up under one arm and hauled the smaller man over the other shoulder. For all that he packed one helluva punch with that nightstick, Reno was fairly slight. Probably because his diet was 90% alcohol with a side of convenience store junk food for sustenance.

It took about half an hour of listening to drunken muttering and struggling to climb a rickety staircase with Reno’s dead weight hanging over his back before Rude made it to his apartment. They didn’t live together, but he knew from experience that leaving Reno alone would end in him going back out the moment Rude was gone. So, he tossed the younger man on his couch and snapped a padlock into place on the door of the second bedroom he used to tinker with weapons and explosives. Reno would have to sober up just enough to lose interest in screwing with weaponry in order to get through the lock—another tidbit Rude had picked up over the years. His partner was sprawled out on the couch and grinning at him by the time he’d snagged a spare blanket and pillow from the hall closet.

“I’m eventually going to run out of ideas for giving you these golden opportunities, you know,” Reno slurred. He flapped a hand at the coffee table. “I mean, not any time soon, but some day. Or maybe I’ll go too far and actually piss her off.” His head lolled to one side while Rude spread the blanket over him. “You’re lucky I have no shame to speak of and am always willing to help a friend. And that those guys were so much fun to play Battleship with.” He abruptly pushed up on his elbows, glassy eyes fixing on Rude’s face. “Any progress?”

The smallest of smirks crossed Rude’s face. “I made her laugh.”

“Look at you go, Casanova!” The congratulatory slap Reno intended to land on his bicep missed and whacked the edge of the coffee table. “Another year and maybe you’ll ask her to dinner.”

“She’s engaged, Reno.”

“And she’ll stay that way with that kind of attitude.” Reno’s eyes widened. A cartoon lightbulb practically appeared over his head. In a sudden flurry of movement he got all the way to his feet. “I’ve just had the best idea ever. I’ll seduce Cloud.”

Rude took approximately half a second to assess Reno’s balance before knocking him back to the couch.

“It’s a good plan!”

“He’s engaged. To a woman.”

“Exactly! To the woman you like!” Reno struggled back to his feet once more and started a wobbly line of pacing between the couch and coffee table. “If I blow his mind—pun intended—they’ll split and you’re free to pursue.” Rude didn’t budge, favoring him with a level stare over the top of his sunglasses. “C’mon. If Blondie doesn’t like cock I’m a freakin’ chocobo.”

With a bit more force this time, Rude pushed his partner back down on the couch. He jabbed a finger at him as if to say ‘stay’. “Sleep it off, Reno,” he insisted. He was down the short hallway and closing his bedroom door behind him before Reno could protest. When he settled down in the bed, though, sleep wouldn’t come. The red numbers from his alarm clock blinked accusingly in the darkness. For all that the idea was completely ludicrous Reno had a point. Tifa might forgive Cloud way too much, but he didn’t think she’d forgive him sleeping with the guy that kept breaking half her bar.

On the nightstand, his phone buzzed. He didn’t have to look to know who the text was from.

Reno: _not like itd be a hardship_

Reno: _spiky fucks kinda cute_

Rude tried not to groan in annoyance before he tapped out a reply.

_If I don’t outright tell you no will you go the fuck to sleep?_

The response was almost instantaneous.

Reno: _ur wish is my cmmd. nite!_

The next morning Rude was both relieved and wary to find his couch had been vacated. Reno was usually a groggy, hungover lump on his couch until early afternoon whenever he had one of these little incidents. Still, he didn’t think too hard on it as he made his way back to the 7th Heaven with the supplies to replace her table. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock, and Tifa usually didn’t come out of the upstairs apartment until closer to ten, so he picked the lock on the main door and got to work as quietly as he could. Just when he started to hear the floorboards creak above his phone buzzed. He fished it from his pocket, then sat in the middle of the bar and stared for a long moment.

Reno: _dont say i never do nothin for u_

Below the message was a picture. It was taken in a sloppy diner several blocks over that Reno favored when he was going to put something resembling actual food in his stomach. The redhead was a disheveled mess in the front of the shot, but what really caught his attention was the figure on their phone on the other side of the booth. The decidedly blonde figure who should have been in the apartment upstairs.

If this actually worked he was never going to hear the end of it.


End file.
